Zend Framework 2.2.0 Released with Feature Enhancements, New Plugin and Module Managers

Zend Framework 2.2.0 has been released with enhancements for usability and consistency primarily with regard to creation and configuration of services such as hydrators, input filters, logs, DB connections, cache objects, translators and forms.

Beginning with Zend Framework 2.2, services are also named as Abstract factories that are either registered by default or can be added quickly to your application configuration using key/configuration pairs under a common top-level configuration key.

For instance, Application\Log enables you to retrieve logs directly from the service manager. In addition to the logger abstract factory, the recent release also includes Zend\Cache, Zend\Db and Zend\Form configuration keys.

Zend Framework 2.2.0 also includes new plugin managers, which are specialized service manager instances used by objects that will be consuming many different related object instances, often based on runtime conditions.

While Zend\Stdlib\Hydrator\HydratorPluginManager is used to retrive hydrator instances, Zend\InputFilter\InputFilterPluginManager is used to configure input filter instances. It enables you to create tables with SQL92 data-types including support for MySQL. It also includes ZendService_Api and ZendService_OpenStack service wrappers.

Zend Framework 2.2 includes a new cache storage backend named Redis and the ClassGenerator includes removeMethod() method. Moreover, the DB adapter provides support for non-RDBMS credential validation.

The framework includes improvements to layout, colorization of banners, usage messages, service manager, helpers and form elements in addition to new DateTimeFormatter, CollectionInputFilter and InputFilterPluginManager filters. It also includes a new module manager, TableGateway object support, enhancements to URL generation and navigation including several improvements to MVC.